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THE ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS: THEIR EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP. ROBERT CHAMBERS. 1849

THE ROMANTIC SCOTTISH BALLADS: THEIR EPOCH AND AUTHORSHIP.

Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 1765; David Herd's Scottish Songs, 1769; Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802; and Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs, 1806, have been chiefly the means of making us acquainted with what is believed to be the ancient traditionary ballad literature of Scotland; and this literature, from its intrinsic merits, has attained a very great fame. I advert particularly to what are usually called the Romantic Ballads, a class of compositions felt to contain striking beauties, almost peculiar to themselves, and consequently held as implying extraordinary poetical attributes in former generations of the people of this country. There have been many speculations about the history of these poems, all assigning them a considerable antiquity, and generally assuming that their recital was once the special business of a set of wandering conteurs or minstrels. So lately as 1858, my admired friend, Professor Aytoun, in introducing a collection of them, at once ample and elegant, to the world, expressed his belief that they date at least from before the Reformation, having only been modified by successive reciters, so as to modernise the language, and, in some instances, bring in the ideas of later ages.

There is, however, a sad want of clear evidence regarding the history of our romantic ballads. We have absolutely no certain knowledge of them before 1724, when Allan Ramsay printed one called Sweet William's Ghost, in his Tea-table Miscellany. There is also this fact staring us in the face, that, while these poems refer to an ancient state of society, they bear not the slightest resemblance either to the minstrel poems of the middle ages, or to the well-known productions of the Henrysons, the Dunbars, the Douglases, the Montgomeries, who flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Neither in the poems of Drummond, and such other specimens of verse--generally wretched--as existed in the seventeenth century, can we trace any feature of the composition of these ballads. Can it be that all editors hitherto have been too facile in accepting them as ancient, though modified compositions? that they are to a much greater extent modern than has hitherto been supposed? or wholly so? Though in early life an editor of them, not less trusting than any of my predecessors, I must own that a suspicion regarding their age and authorship has at length entered my mind. In stating it--which I do in a spirit of great deference to Professor Aytoun and others--I shall lead the reader through the steps by which I arrived at my present views upon the subject.

In 1719, there appeared, in a folio sheet, at Edinburgh, a heroic poem styled Hardyknute, written in affectedly old spelling, as if it had been a contemporary description of events connected with the invasion of Scotland by Haco, king of Norway, in 1263. A corrected copy was soon after presented in the Evergreen of Allan Ramsay, a collection professedly of poems written before 1600, but into which we know the editor admitted a piece written by himself. Hardyknute was afterwards reprinted in Percy's Reliques, still as an ancient composition; yet it was soon after declared to be the production of a Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie, who died so lately as 1727. Although, to modern taste, a stiff and poor composition, there is a nationality of feeling about it, and a touch of chivalric spirit, that has maintained for it a certain degree of popularity. Sir Walter Scott tells us it was the first poem he ever learned by heart, and he believed it would be the last he should forget.

It is necessary to present a few brief extracts from this poem. In the opening, the Scottish king, Alexander III., is represented as receiving notice of the Norwegian invasion:

The king of Norse, in summer pride,
Puffed up with power and micht,
Landed in fair Scotland, the isle,
With mony a hardy knicht.
The tidings to our gude Scots king
Came as he sat at dine,
With noble chiefs in brave array,
Drinking the blude-red wine.
'To horse, to horse, my royal liege;
Your faes stand on the strand;
Full twenty thousand glittering spears
The king of Norse commands.'
'Bring me my steed, page, dapple-gray,'
Our good king rose and cried;
'A trustier beast in a' the land
A Scots king never tried.'

Hardyknute, summoned to the king's assistance, leaves his wife and daughter, 'Fairly fair,' under the care of his youngest son. As to the former lady--

... first she wet her comely cheeks,
And then her bodice green,
Her silken cords of twirtle twist,
Well plet with silver sheen;
And apron, set with mony a dice
Of needle-wark sae rare,
Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess,
But that of Fairly fair.

In his journey, Hardyknute falls in with a wounded and deserted knight, to whom he makes an offer of assistance:

With smileless look and visage wan,
The wounded knight replied:
'Kind chieftain, your intent pursue,
For here I maun abide.

'To me nae after day nor nicht
Can e'er be sweet or fair;
But soon beneath some dropping tree,
Cauld death shall end my care.'

A field of battle is thus described:

In thraws of death, with wallowit cheek,
All panting on the plain,
The fainting corps[1] of warriors lay,
Ne'er to arise again;
Ne'er to return to native land,
Nae mair, with blithesome sounds,
To boast the glories of the day,
And shaw their shining wounds.

On Norway's coast, the widowed dame
May wash the rock with tears,
May lang look o'er the shipless seas,
Before her mate appears.
'Cease, Emma, cease to hope in vain;
Thy lord lies in the clay;
The valiant Scots nae rievers thole[2]
To carry life away.'

[1] A Scotticism, plural of corp, a body.

[2] Permit no robbers, &c.

I must now summon up, for a comparison with these specimens of the modern antique in ballad lore, the famous and admired poem of Sir Patrick Spence. It has come to us mainly through two copies--one comparatively short, published in Percy's Reliques, as 'from two manuscript copies transmitted from Scotland;' the other, containing more details, in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, also 'from two manuscript copies,' but 'collated with several verses recited by the editor's friend, Robert Hamilton, Esq., advocate.' It is nowhere pretended that any ancient manuscript of this poem has ever been seen or heard of. It acknowledgedly has come to us from modern manuscripts, as it might be taken down from modern reciters; although Percy prints it in the same quasi antique spelling as that in which Hardyknute had appeared, where being quhar; sea, se; come, cum; year, zeir; &c. It will be necessary here to reprint the whole ballad, as given originally by Percy, introducing, however, within brackets the additional details of Scott's copy:[3]

The king sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine:
'O whar will I get a gude sailor,
To sail this ship of mine?'

Up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor
That sails upon the sea.'

The king has written a braid letter,
And signed it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence,
Was walking on the sand.

['To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis thou maun bring her hame.']

The first line that Sir Patrick read,
A loud lauch lauched he:
The next line that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.

'O wha is this hae done this deed,
This ill deed done to me;
To send me out this time o' the year,
To sail upon the sea?

['Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
Our ship must sail the faem;
The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis we must fetch her hame.'

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn,
Wi' a' the speed they may;
They hae landed in Noroway,
Upon a Wodensday.

They had na been a week, a week,
In Noroway, but twae,
When that the lords of Noroway
Began aloud to say:

'Ye Scottish men spend a' our king's gowd,
And a' our queenis fee.'
'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu' loud I hear ye lie.

'For I hae broucht as much white monie
As gane[4] my men and me,
And I broucht a half-fou o' gude red gowd,
Out ower the sea wi' me.']

'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a',
Our gude ship sails the morn.'
'O say na sae, my master dear,[5]
For I fear a deadly storm.

'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And I fear, I fear, my master dear,
That we will come to harm.'

[They had na sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And gurly grew the sea.

The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
It was sic a deadly storm,
And the waves cam o'er the broken ship,
Till a' her sides were torn.]

O our Scots nobles were richt laith
To weet their cork-heeled shoon;
But lang ere a' the play was played,
Their hats they swam aboon.[6]

[And mony was the feather-bed
That flattered on the faem;
And mony was the gude lord's son
That never mair cam hame.

The ladies wrang their fingers white,
The maidens tore their hair,
A' for the sake of their true loves,
For them they'll see nae mair.]

O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
Wi' their fans into their hand,
Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spence
Come sailing to the land.

O lang, lang may the ladies stand,
Wi' their gold kames in their hair,
Waiting for their ain dear lords,
For they'll see them nae mair.

Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,[7]
It's fifty fathom deep;
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spence
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.

[3] Only omitting the five verses supplied by Mr Hamilton, as they appear redundant.

[4] Serve.

[5] Variation in Scott:

Now ever alak_e_, my master dear.

[6] Variation in Scott:

They wet their hats aboon.

[7] Variation in Scott:

O forty miles off Aberdeen.

Percy, at the close of his copy of Sir Patrick Spence, tells us that 'an ingenious friend' of his was of opinion that 'the author of Hardyknute has borrowed several expressions and sentiments from the foregoing [ballad], and other old Scottish songs in this collection.' It does not seem to have ever occurred to the learned editor, or any friend of his, however 'ingenious,' that perhaps Sir Patrick Spence had no superior antiquity over Hardyknute, and that the parity he remarked in the expressions was simply owing to the two ballads being the production of one mind. Neither did any such suspicion occur to Scott. He fully accepted Sir Patrick Spence as a historical narration, judging it to refer most probably to an otherwise unrecorded embassy to bring home the Maid of Norway, daughter of King Eric, on the succession to the Scottish crown opening to her in 1286, by the death of her grandfather, King Alexander III., although the names of the ambassadors who did go for that purpose are known to have been different.[8] The want of any ancient manuscript, the absence of the least trait of an ancient style of composition, the palpable modernness of the diction--for example, 'Our ship must sail the faem,' a glaring specimen of the poetical language of the reign of Queen Anne--and, still more palpably, of several of the things alluded to, as cork-heeled shoon, hats, fans, and feather-beds, together with the inapplicableness of the story to any known event of actual history, never struck any editor of Scottish poetry, till, at a recent date, Mr David Laing intimated his suspicions that Sir Patrick Spence and Hardyknute were the production of the same author.[9] To me it appears that there could not well be more remarkable traits of an identity of authorship than what are presented in the extracts given from Hardyknute and the entire poem of Sir Patrick--granting only that the one poem is a considerable improvement upon the other. Each poem opens with absolutely the same set of particulars--a Scottish king sitting--drinking the blude-red wine--and sending off a message to a subject on a business of importance. Norway is brought into connection with Scotland in both cases. Sir Patrick's exclamation, 'To Noroway, to Noroway,' meets with an exact counterpart in the 'To horse, to horse,' of the courtier in Hardyknute. The words of the ill-boding sailor in Sir Patrick, 'Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon'--a very peculiar expression, be it remarked--are repeated in Hardyknute:

'Late, late the yestreen I weened in peace,
To end my lengthened life.'

[8] There is one insuperable objection to Sir Walter's theory, which I am surprised should not have occurred to himself, or to some of those who have followed him. In his version of the ballad, the design to bring home the daughter of the king of Norway is expressed by the king of Scotland himself. Now, there was no occasion for Alexander III. sending for his infant granddaughter; nor is it conceivable that, in his lifetime, such a notion should have occurred or been entertained on either his side or that of the child's father. It was not till after the death of Alexander had made the infant Norwegian princess queen of Scotland--four years after that event, indeed--that the guardians of the kingdom, in concert with Edward I. of England, sent for her by Sir David Wemyss of Wemyss and Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, who actually brought her home, but in a dying state. For these reasons, on the theory of the ballad referring to a real occurrence, it must have been to the bringing home of some Norwegian princess to be wedded to a king of Scotland that it referred. But there is no such event in Scottish history.

Professor Aytoun alters a verse of the ballad as follows:

To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem;
The king's daughter to Noroway,
It's thou maun tak her hame.

And he omits the verse in which Sir Patrick says:

The king's daughter of Noroway,
'Tis we must fetch her hame.

Thus making the ballad referrible to the expedition in 1281 for taking Alexander's daughter to be married to the king of Norway. But I apprehend such liberties with an old ballad are wholly unwarrantable.

[9] Notes to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, 1839.

The grief of the ladies at the catastrophe in Sir Patrick Spence, is equally the counterpart of that of the typical Norse lady with regard to the fate of her male friend at Largs. I am inclined, likewise, to lay some stress on the localities mentioned in Sir Patrick Spence--namely, Dunfermline and Aberdour--these being places in the immediate neighbourhood of the mansions where Lady Wardlaw spent her maiden and her matron days. A poet, indeed, often writes about places which he never saw; but it is natural for him to be most disposed to write about those with which he is familiar; and some are first inspired by the historical associations connected with their native scenes. True, as has been remarked, there is a great improvement upon Hardyknute in the 'grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,' as Coleridge calls it, yet not more than what is often seen in compositions of a particular author at different periods of life. It seems as if the hand which was stiff and somewhat puerile in Hardyknute, had acquired freedom and breadth of style in Sir Patrick Spence. For all of these reasons, I feel assured that Sir Patrick is a modern ballad, and suspect, or more than suspect, that the author is Lady Wardlaw.[10]

[10] Professor Aytoun says: 'It is true that the name [of Sir Patrick Spence] ... is not mentioned in history: but I am able to state that tradition has preserved it. In the little island of Papa Stronsay, one of the Orcadian group, lying over against Norway, there is a large grave or tumulus, which has been known to the inhabitants from time immemorial as "The grave of Sir Patrick Spence." The Scottish ballads were not early current in Orkney, a Scandinavian country; to it is very unlikely that the poem could have originated the name.' I demur to this unlikelihood, and would require some proof to convince me that the grave of Sir Patrick Spence in Papa Stronsay is not a parallel geographical phenomenon to the island of Ellen Douglas in Loch Katrine.

Probably, by this time, the reader will desire to know what is now to be known regarding Lady Wardlaw. Unfortunately, this is little, for, as she shrank from the honours of authorship in her lifetime, no one thought of chronicling anything about her. We learn that she was born Elizabeth Halket, being the second daughter of Sir Charles Halket of Pitfirran, Baronet, who was raised to that honour by Charles II., and took an active part, as a member of the Convention of 1689, in settling the crown upon William and Mary. Her eldest sister, Janet, marrying Sir Peter Wedderburn of Gosford, was the progenitress of the subsequent Halkets, baronets of Pitfirran, her son being Sir Peter Halket, colonel of the 44th regiment of foot, who died in General Braddock's unfortunate conflict at Monongahela in 1755. A younger sister married Sir John Hope Bruce of Kinross, baronet, who died, one of the oldest lieutenant-generals in the British service, in 1766. Elizabeth, the authoress of Hardyknute, born on the 15th of April 1677, became, in June 1696, the wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie (third baronet of the title), to whom she bore a son, subsequently fourth baronet, and three daughters.[11]

[11] Playfair's Brit. Fam. Antiquity, viii., 170, lxviii.

The ballad of Hardyknute, though printed in a separate brochure by James Watson in 1719, had been previously talked of or quoted, for the curiosity of Lord Binning was excited about it, apparently in a conversation with Sir John Hope Bruce, the brother-in-law of Lady Wardlaw. Pinkerton received from Lord Hailes, and printed, an extract from a letter of Sir John to Lord Binning, as follows: 'To perform my promise, I send you a true copy of the manuscript I found a few weeks ago in a vault at Dunfermline. It is written on vellum, in a fair Gothic character, but so much defaced by time as you'll find the tenth part not legible.' Sir John, we are told by Pinkerton, transcribed in this letter 'the whole fragment first published, save one or two stanzas, marking several passages as having perished, from being illegible in the old manuscript.'[12]

[12] Ancient Scottish Poems, 2 vols. (1786), i. p. cxxvii.

Here is documentary evidence that Hardyknute came out through the hands of Lady Wardlaw's brother-in-law, with a story about its discovery as an old manuscript, so transparently fictitious, that one wonders at people of sense having ever attempted to obtain credence for it--which consequently forms in itself a presumption as to an authorship being concealed. Pinkerton rashly assumed that Sir John Bruce was the author of the poem, and on the strength of that assumption, introduced his name among the Scottish poets.

The first hint at the real author came out through Percy, who, in his second edition of the Reliques (1767), gives the following statement:

'There is more than reason to suspect that it [Hardyknute] owes most of its beauties (if not its whole existence) to the pen of a lady within the present century. The following particulars may be depended on. Mrs [mistake for Lady] Wardlaw, whose maiden name was Halket ... pretended she had found this poem, written on shreds of paper, employed for what is called the bottoms of clues. A suspicion arose that it was her own composition. Some able judges asserted it to be modern. The lady did in a manner acknowledge it to be so. Being desired to show an additional stanza, as a proof of this, she produced the two last, beginning with "There's nae light, &c.," which were not in the copy that was first printed. The late Lord President Forbes and Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto (late Lord Justice-clerk for Scotland), who had believed it ancient, contributed to the expense of publishing the first edition, in folio, 1719. This account was transmitted from Scotland by Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes),[13] who yet was of opinion that part of the ballad may be ancient, but retouched and much enlarged by the lady above mentioned. Indeed, he had been informed that the late William Thomson, the Scottish musician, who published the Orpheus Caledonius, 1733, declared he had heard fragments of it repeated in his infancy before Mrs Wardlaw's copy was heard of.'

[13] It is rather remarkable that Percy was not informed of these particulars in 1765; but in 1767--Sir John Hope Bruce having died in the interval (June 1766)--they were communicated to him. It looks as if the secret had hung on the life of this venerable gentleman.

The question as to the authorship of Hardyknute was once more raised in 1794, when Sir Charles Halket, grandson of Mary, third daughter of Lady Wardlaw, wrote a letter to Dr Stenhouse of Dunfermline, containing the following passage: 'The late Mr Hepburn of Keith often declared he was in the house with Lady Wardlaw when she wrote Hardyknute.' He also gave the following particulars in a manuscript account of his family, as reported by George Chalmers (Life of Allan Ramsay, 1800): 'Miss Elizabeth Menzies, daughter of James Menzies, Esq., of Woodend, in Perthshire, by Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Henry Wardlaw [second baronet], wrote to Sir Charles Halket that her mother, who was sister-in-law to Lady Wardlaw, told her that Lady Wardlaw was the real authoress of Hardyknute; that Mary, the wife of Charles Wedderburn, Esq., of Gosford, told Miss Menzies that her mother, Lady Wardlaw, wrote Hardyknute. Sir Charles Halket and Miss Elizabeth Menzies concur in saying that Lady Wardlaw was a woman of elegant accomplishments, who wrote other poems, and practised drawing, and cutting paper with her scissors, and who had much wit and humour, with great sweetness of temper.'

In the middle of the last century appeared two editions of a brochure containing the now well-known ballad of Gil Morrice; the date of the second was 1755. Prefixed to both was an advertisement setting forth that the preservation of this poem was owing 'to a lady, who favoured the printers with a copy, as it was carefully collected from the mouths of old women and nurses;' and 'any reader that can render it more correct or complete,' was desired to oblige the public with such improvements. Percy adopted the poem into his collection, with four additional verses, which meanwhile had been 'produced and handed about in manuscript,' but which were in a florid style, glaringly incongruous with the rest of the piece. He at the same time mentioned that there existed, in his folio manuscript, (supposed) of Elizabeth's time, an imperfect copy of the same ballad, under the title of Child Maurice.

This early ballad of Child Maurice, which Mr Jamieson afterwards printed from Percy's manuscript, gives the same story of a gentleman killing, under jealousy, a young man, who proved to be a son of his wife by a former connection. But it is a poor, bald, imperfect composition, in comparison with Gil Morrice. It was evident to Percy that there had been a 'revisal' of the earlier poem, attended by 'considerable improvements.'

Now, by whom had this improving revisal been effected? Who was the 'lady' that favoured the printers with the copy? I strongly suspect that the reviser was Lady Wardlaw, and that the poem was communicated to the printers either by her or by some of her near relations. The style of many of the verses, and even some of the particular expressions, remind us strongly of Sir Patrick Spence; while other verses, again, are more in the stiff manner of Hardyknute. The poem opens thus:

Gil Morrice was an earl's son,
His name it waxed wide;
It was na for his great riches,
Nor yet his mickle pride;
But it was for a lady gay,
That lived on Carron side.

'Whar sall I get a bonny boy,
That will win hose and shoon;
That will gae to Lord Barnard's ha',
And bid his lady come?

'And ye maun rin my errand, Willie,
And ye may rin wi' pride,
When other boys gae on their foot,
On horseback ye sall ride.'

'O no! O no! my master dear,
I dare nae for my life;
I'll ne gae to the bauld baron's,
For to tryst forth his wife.'

'O say na sae, my master dear,
For I fear a deadly storm.'

What next follows is like Hardyknute:

'But, O my master dear,' he cried,
In green wood ye're your lane;
Gie ower sic thoughts, I wad ye reid,
For fear ye should be tane.'
'Haste, haste! I say, gae to the ha';
Bid her come here wi' speed:
If ye refuse my heigh command,
I'll gar your body bleed.'

When the boy goes in and pronounces the fatal message before Lord Barnard:

Then up and spak the wily nurse,
The bairn upon her knee:
'If it be come frae Gil Morrice,
It's dear welcome to me.'

Compare this with the second verse of Sir Patrick Spence:

O up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee, &c.

The messenger replies to the nurse:

'Ye lied, ye lied, ye filthy nurse,
Sae loud I heard ye lie,' &c.

Identical with Sir Patrick's answer to the taunt of the Norwegian lords:

'Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud,
Fu' loud I hear ye lie.'

When the youth has been slain by Lord Barnard, the lady explains that he was her son, and exclaims:

'To me nae after days nor nichts
Will e'er be saft or kind;
I'll fill the air wi' heavy sighs,
And greet till I am blind.'

How nearly is this the same with the doleful complaint of the wounded knight in Hardyknute!

'To me nae after day nor night
Can e'er be sweet or fair,' &c.

Lord Barnard pours out his contrition to his wife:

'With waefu' wae I hear your plaint,
Sair, sair I rue the deed,
That e'er this cursed hand of mine
Had garred his body bleed.'

'Garred his body bleed' is a quaint and singular expression: it occurs in Hardyknute, and nowhere else:

'To lay thee low as horse's hoof,
My word I mean to keep:'
Syne with the first stroke e'er he strake,
He garred his body bleed.

Passages and phrases of one poem appear in another from various causes--plagiarism and imitation; and in traditionary lore, it is easy to understand how a number of phrases might be in general use, as part of a common stock. But the parallel passages above noted are confined to a particular group of ballads--they are not to such an extent beauties as to have been produced by either plagiarism or imitation; it is submitted that they thus appear by an overwhelmingly superior likelihood as the result of a common authorship in the various pieces.

Having so traced a probable common authorship, and that modern, from Hardyknute to Sir Patrick Spence, and from these two to the revised and improved edition of Gil Morrice, I was tempted to inquire if there be not others of the Scottish ballads liable to similar suspicion as to the antiquity of their origin? May not the conjectured author of these three have written several of the remainder of that group of compositions, so remarkable as they likewise are for their high literary qualities? Now, there is in Percy a number of Scottish ballads equally noteworthy for their beauty, and for the way in which they came to the hands of the editor. There is Edward, Edward, 'from a manuscript copy transmitted from Scotland;' the Jew's Daughter, 'from a manuscript copy sent from Scotland;' Gilderoy, 'from a written copy that appears to have received some modern corrections;' likewise, Young Waters, 'from a copy printed not long since at Glasgow, in one sheet octavo,' for the publication of which the world was 'indebted to Lady Jean Home, sister to the Earl of Home;' and Edom o' Gordon, which had been put by Sir David Dalrymple to Foulis's press in 1755, 'as it was preserved in the memory of a lady that is now dead'--Percy, however, having in this case improved the ballad by the addition of a few stanzas from a fragment in his folio manuscript. Regarding the Bonny Earl of Murray, the editor tells us nothing beyond calling it 'a Scottish song.' Of not one of these seven ballads, as published by Percy, has it ever been pretended that any ancient manuscript exists, or that there is any proof of their having had a being before the eighteenth century, beyond the rude and dissimilar prototypes (shall we call them?) which, in two instances, are found in the folio manuscript of Percy. No person was cited at first as having been accustomed to recite or sing them; and they have not been found familiar to the common people since. Their style is elegant, and free from coarsenesses, while yet exhibiting a large measure of the ballad simplicity. In all literary grace, they are as superior to the generality of the homely traditionary ballads of the rustic population, as the romances of Scott are superior to a set of chap-books. Indeed, it might not be very unreasonable to say that these ballads have done more to create a popularity for Percy's Reliques than all the other contents of the book. There is a community of character throughout all these poems, both as to forms of expression and style of thought and feeling--jealousy in husbands of high rank, maternal tenderness, tragic despair, are prominent in them, though not in them all. In several, there is the same kind of obscure and confused reference to known events in Scottish history, which editors have thought they saw in Sir Patrick Spence.

Let us take a cursory glance at these poems.

Young Waters is a tale of royal jealousy. It is here given entire.

About Yule, when the wind blew cool,
And the round tables began,
A! there is come to our king's court
Mony a well-favoured man.

The queen looked ower the castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down,
And then she saw Young Waters
Come riding to the town.

His footmen they did rin before,
His horsemen rade behind,
Ane mantel o' the burning gowd
Did keep him frae the wind.

Gowden graithed his horse before,
And siller shod behind;
The horse Young Waters rade upon
Was fleeter than the wind.

But then spak a wily lord,
Unto the queen said he:
'O tell me wha's the fairest face
Rides in the company?'

'I've seen lord, and I've seen laird,
And knights of high degree;
But a fairer face than Young Waters
Mine een did never see.'

Out then spak the jealous king,
And an angry man was he:
'O if he had been twice as fair,
You might have excepted me.'

'You're neither lord nor laird,' she says,
'But the king that wears the crown;
There's not a knight in fair Scotland,
But to thee maun bow down.'

For a' that she could do or say,
Appeased he wadna be,
But for the words which she had said,
Young Waters he maun dee.

They hae tane Young Waters, and
Put fetters to his feet;
They hae tane Young Waters, and
Thrown him in dungeon deep.

Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind but and the weet,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Wi' fetters at my feet.

Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind both and the rain,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Ne'er to return again.

They hae tane to the heading-hill
His young son in his cradle;
They hae tane to the heading-hill
His horse both and his saddle.

They hae tane to the heading-hill
His lady fair to see;
And for the words the queen had spoke,
Young Waters he did dee.

Now, let the parallel passages be here observed. In verse second, the lady does exactly like the mother of Gil Morrice, of whom it is said:

The lady sat on the castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down,
And there she saw Gil Morrice' head
Come trailing to the town.

Dale and down, let it be observed in passing, are words never used in Scotland; they are exotic English terms. The mantle of the hero in verse third recalls that of Gil Morrice, which was 'a' gowd but the hem'--a specialty, we may say, not likely to have occurred to a male mind. What the wily lord does in verse fifth is the exact counterpart of the account of the eldern knight in Sir Patrick Spence:

Up and spak an eldern knight,
Sat at the king's right knee.

Observe the description of the king's jealous rage in Young Waters; how perfectly the same is that of the baron in Gil Morrice:

Then up and spak the bauld baron,
An angry man was he * *

'Nae wonder, nae wonder, Gil Morrice,
My lady lo'es thee weel,
The fairest part of my bodie
Is blacker than thy heel.'

Even in so small a matter as the choice of rhymes, especially where there is any irregularity, it may be allowable to point out a parallelism. Is there not such between those in the verse descriptive of Young Waters's fettering, and those in the closing stanza of Sir Patrick Spence? It belongs to the idiosyncrasy of an author to make feet rhyme twice over to deep. Finally, let us observe how like the tone as well as words of the last lines of Young Waters to a certain verse in Hardyknute:

The fainting corps of warriors lay,
Ne'er to rise again.

Percy surmised that Young Waters related to the fate of the Earl of Moray, slain by the Earl of Huntly in 1592, not without the concurrence, as was suspected, of the king, whose jealousy, it has been surmised, was excited against the young noble by indiscreet expressions of the queen. To the same subject obviously referred the ballad of the Bonny Earl of Murray, which consists, however, of but six stanzas, the last of which is very like the second of Young Waters:

O lang will his lady
Look ower the Castle Downe,
Ere she see the Earl of Murray
Come sounding through the town.

Edom o' Gordon is only a modern and improved version of an old ballad which Percy found in his folio manuscript under the name of Captain Adam Carre. It clearly relates to a frightful act of Adam Gordon of Auchindown, when he maintained Queen Mary's interest in the north in 1571--the burning of the house of Towie, with the lady and her family within it. All that can be surmised here is that the revision was the work of the same pen with the pieces here cited--as witness, for example, the opening stanzas:

It fell about the Martinmas,
When the wind blew shrill and cauld,[14]
Said Edom o' Gordon to his men:
'We maun draw till a hauld.

'And what a hauld shall we draw till,
My merry men and me?
We will gae to the house o' Rodes,
To see that fair ladye.'

The lady stood on her castle-wa',
Beheld baith dale and down;
There she was 'ware of a host of men
Come riding towards the town.[15]

'O see ye not, my merry men a',[16]
O see ye not what I see?' &c.

In the Jew's Daughter there is much in the general style to remind us of others of this group of ballads; but there are scarcely any parallel expressions. One may be cited:

She rowed him in a cake of lead,
Bade him lie still and sleep,
She cast him in a deep draw-well,
Was fifty fadom deep.

[14] Young Waters opens in the same manner:

About Yule, when the wind blew cool.

[15] We have seen the same description in both Young Waters and the Bonny Earl of Murray.

[16] Compare this with Sir Patrick Spence:

'Mak haste, mak haste, my merry men a'.'

This must remind the reader of Sir Patrick Spence:

Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,
It's fifty fathom deep.

Gilderoy, in the version printed by Percy, is a ballad somewhat peculiar, in a rich dulcet style, and of very smooth versification, but is only an improved version of a rude popular ballad in the same measure, which was printed in several collections long before,[17] and was probably a street-ditty called forth by the hanging of the real robber, Patrick Macgregor, commonly called Gilderoy,[18] in 1636. The concluding verses of the refined version recall the peculiar manner of the rest of these poems:

[17] In a Collection of Old Ballads, printed for J. Roberts, London, 1723; also in Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, 1733.

[18] The appellative, Gilderoy, means the ruddy-complexioned lad.

Gif Gilderoy had done amiss,
He might hae banished been;
Ah what sair cruelty is this,
To hang sic handsome men:
To hang the flower o' Scottish land,
Sae sweet and fair a boy;
Nae lady had sae white a hand
As thee, my Gilderoy.

Of Gilderoy sae 'fraid they were,
They bound him mickle strong;
Till Edinburgh they led him there,
And on a gallows hung:
They hung him high aboon the rest,
He was sae trim a boy;
There died the youth whom I lo'ed best,
My handsome Gilderoy.

Thus having yielded up his breath,
I bare his corpse away;
With tears that trickled for his death,
I washed his comely clay.
And sicker in a grave sae deep,
I laid the dear-lo'ed boy;
And now for ever maun I weep
My winsome Gilderoy.

If any one will compare the Percy version of this ballad with the homely and indecorous ones printed before, he will not be the more disposed to go back to antiquity and a humble grade of authorship for what is best in the Scottish ballads.[19]

[19] Professor Aytoun says of this ballad, that 'it was adapted from the original by Sir Alexander Halket--at least, such was the general understanding until lately, when it became a mania with some literary antiquaries [a glance at the opinions of the present writer] to attribute the authorship of the great bulk of the Scottish ballads to Sir Alexander's sister, Lady Wardlaw, on the single ground that she was the composer of Hardyknute.' My learned friend is here very unlucky, for Lady Wardlaw had no brother, nor does any Sir Alexander Halket appear in her family history. This, however, is not all. It was a song to the tune of Gilderoy which was attributed to Sir Alexander Halket (Johnson's Scots Musical Museum)--namely, the well-known Ah, Chloris, which turns out to be a composition of Sir Charles Sedley, inserted by him in a play entitled the Mulberry Garden, which was acted in 1668.

Edward, Edward, which Percy received from Sir David Dalrymple, and placed among his oldest pieces, in affectedly old spelling, is a striking melodramatic composition:

'Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
And why sae sad gang ye, O?'
'O, I hae killed my hawk sae guid,
Mother, mother:
O, I hae killed my hawk sae guid,
And I had nae mair but he, O.'

'Your hawk's bluid was never sae reid,
Edward, Edward;
Your hawk's bluid was never sae reid,
My dear son, I tell ye, O.'
'O, I hae killed my reid-roan steed,
Mother, mother;
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steed,
That erst was sae fair and free, O.'

'Your steed was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward;
Your steed was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Some other dool ye drie, O.'
'O, I hae killed my father dear,
Mother, mother;
O, I hae killed my father dear,
Alas, and wae is me, O.'

'And whaten penance will ye drie for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whaten penance will ye drie for that,
My dear son, now tell me, O?'
'I'll set my feet in yonder boat,
Mother, mother;
I'll set my feet in yonder boat,
And I'll fare over the sea, O.'

* * *

'And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what will ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
When ye gang over the sea, O?'
'The warld's room, let them beg through life,
Mother, mother;
The warld's room, let them beg through life,
For them never mair will I see, O.'

'And what will ye leave to your ain mother dear,
Edward, Edward;
And what will ye leave to your ain mother dear,
My dear son, now tell me, O?'
'The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,
Mother, mother;
The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,
Sic counsels ye gave me, O.'

It seems unaccountable how any editor of Percy's discernment could ever have accepted this as old poetry. There is certainly none prior to 1700 which exhibits this kind of diction. Neither did any such poetry at any time proceed from a rustic uneducated mind.

When we continue our search beyond the bounds of Percy's Reliques, we readily find ballads passing as old, which are not unlike the above, either in regard to their general beauty, or special strains of thought and expression. There are five which seem peculiarly liable to suspicion on both grounds--namely, Johnie of Bradislee, Mary Hamilton, the Gay Gos-hawk, Fause Foodrage, and the Lass o' Lochryan.

In Johnie o' Bradislee, the hero is a young unlicensed huntsman, who goes out to the deer-forest against his mother's advice, and has a fatal encounter with seven foresters. Observe the description of the youth:

His cheeks were like the roses red,
His neck was like the snaw;
He was the bonniest gentleman
My eyes they ever saw.

His coat was o' the scarlet red,
His vest was o' the same;
His stockings were o' the worset lace,
And buckles tied to the same.

The shirt that was upon his back
Was o' the Holland fine;
The doublet that was over that
Was o' the Lincoln twine.

The buttons that were upon his sleeve
Were o' the gowd sae guid, &c.

This is mercery of the eighteenth, and no earlier century. Both Gilderoy and Gil Morrice are decked out in a similar fashion; and we may fairly surmise that it was no man's mind which revelled so luxuriously in the description of these three specimens of masculine beauty, or which invested them in such elegant attire. Johnie kills the seven foresters, but receives a deadly hurt. He then speaks in the following strain:

'O is there a bird in a' this bush
Would sing as I would say,
Go home and tell my auld mother
That I hae won the day?

'Is there ever a bird in a' this bush
Would sing as I would say,
Go home and tell my ain true love
To come and fetch Johnie away?

'Is there a bird in this hale forest
Would do as mickle for me,
As dip its wing in the wan water,
And straik it ower my ee-bree?'

The starling flew to his mother's bower-stane,
It whistled and it sang;
And aye the owerword o' its tune
Was, 'Johnie tarries lang.'

The mother says in conclusion:

'Aft hae I brought to Bradislee
The less gear and the mair;
But I ne'er brought to Bradislee
What grieved my heart sae sair.'

Now, first, is not the literary beauty of the above expressions of the young huntsman calculated to excite suspicion? It may be asked, is there anything in the older Scottish poets comparable to them? Second, how like is the verse regarding the starling to one in Gil Morrice!

Gil Morrice sat in guid green wood,
He whistled and he sang;
'O what mean a' the folk coming?
My mother tarries lang.'

Then, as to the last verse, how like to one in Young Waters!

Aft hae I ridden through Stirling town,
In the wind both and the rain,
But I ne'er rade through Stirling town
Ne'er to return again.

Mary Hamilton describes the tragic fate of an attendant on Queen Mary, brought to the gallows for destroying her own infant. The reflections of the heroine at the last sad moment are expressed in the same rich strain of sentiment as some of the passages of other ballads already quoted, and with remarkable parallelisms in terms:

'O aften hae I dressed my queen,
And put gowd in her hair;
But now I've gotten for my reward
The gallows tree to share.

* * *

'I charge ye all, ye mariners,
When ye sail ower the faem,
Let neither my father nor mother get wit
But that I 'm coming hame.

* * *

'O little did my mother think
That day she cradled me,
What lands I was to travel ower,
What death I was to die!'

The Scottish ladies sit bewailing the loss of Sir Patrick Spence's companions, 'wi' the gowd kaims in their hair.' Sir Patrick tells his friends before starting on his voyage, 'Our ship must sail the faem;' and in the description of the consequences of his shipwreck, we find 'Mony was the feather-bed that flattered on the faem.' No old poet would use foam as an equivalent for the sea; but it was just such a phrase as a poet of the era of Pope would love to use in that sense. The first of the above verses is evidently a cast from the same mould of thought as Bradislee's mother's concluding lament, and Young Waters's last words just quoted. The resemblance is not of that kind which arises from the use of literary commonplaces or stock phrases: the expressions have that identity which betrays their common source in one mind, a mind having a great command of rich and simple pathos.

In the Gay Gos-hawk, a gentleman commissions the bird to go on a mission to his mistress, who is secluded from him among her relations, and tell her how he dies by long waiting for her; whereupon she returns an answer by the same messenger, to the effect that she will presently meet him at Mary's Kirk for the effecting of their nuptials. The opening of the poem is just a variation of Bradislee's apostrophe to his bird-messenger:

'O waly, waly, my gay gos-hawk,
Gin your feathering be sheen!'
'And waly, waly, my master dear,
Gin ye look pale and lean!

'Oh, have ye tint at tournament
Your sword, or yet your spear?
Or mourn ye for the southern lass,
Whom ye may not win near?'

'I have not tint at tournament
My sword, nor yet my spear;
But sair I mourn for my true love,
Wi' mony a bitter tear.

'But weel's me on you, my gay gos-hawk,
Ye can both speak and flie;
Ye sall carry a letter to my love,
Bring an answer back to me.'

Hardyknute, Sir Patrick Spence, and Gil Morrice, all open, it will be recollected, with the sending away of a message. Here is a fourth instance, very like one artist's work, truly.

The lover describes his mistress in terms recalling Bradislee:

'The red that is on my true love's cheek
Is like blood-draps on the snaw;
The white that is on her breast bare,
Like the down o' the white sea-maw.'

The bird arrives at the lady's abode:

And first he sang a low, low note,
And syne he sang a clear;
And aye the owerword o' the sang
Was, 'Your love can no win here.'

Gil Morrice has:

Aye the owerword o' his sang
Was, 'My mother tarries lang.'

The lady feigns death, after the device of Juliet:

Then up and rose her seven brethren,
And hewed to her a bier;
They hewed frae the solid aik,
Laid it ower wi' silver clear.

Then up and gat her seven sisters,
And sewed to her a kell;
And every steek that they put in
Sewed to a silver bell.

Here we have the same style of luxurious description of which we have already seen so many examples--so different from the usually bald style of the real homely ballads of the people. It is, further, very remarkable that in Clerk Saunders it is seven brothers of the heroine who come in and detect her lover; and in the Douglas Tragedy, when the pair are eloping, Lord William spies his mistress's

... seven brethren bold
Come riding o'er the lee.

Both of these ballads, indeed, shew a structure and a strain of description and sentiment justifying the strongest suspicions of their alleged antiquity, and pointing to the same source as the other pieces already noticed.

The ballad of Fause Foodrage, which Sir Walter Scott printed for the first time, describes a successful conspiracy by Foodrage and others against King Honour and his queen. The king being murdered, the queen is told, that if she brings forth a son, it will be put to death likewise; so she escapes, and, bringing a male child into the world, induces the lady of Wise William to take charge of it as her own, while she herself takes charge of the lady's daughter. The unfortunate queen then arranges a future conduct for both parties, in language violently figurative:

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk,
Right weel to breast a steed;
And I sall learn your turtle-dow
As weel to write and read.

'And ye maun learn my gay gos-hawk,
To wield both bow and brand;
And I sall learn your turtle-dow
To lay gowd wi' her hand.

'At kirk and market, when we meet,
We'll dare make nae avowe,
But--Dame, how does my gay gos-hawk?
Madam, how does my dow?'

When the royal youth grows up, Wise William reveals to him his history, and how his mother is still in confinement in Foodrage's hands. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk' at hearing the strange intelligence, but soon resolves on a course of action:

He has set his bent bow to his breast,
And leapt the castle-wa',
And soon he has seized on Fause Foodrage,
Wha loud for help 'gan ca'.

The slaying of Foodrage and marriage of the turtle-dow wind up the ballad. Now, is not the adoption of the term, 'gay gos-hawk' in this ballad, calculated to excite a very strong suspicion as to a community of authorship with the other, in which a gay gos-hawk figures so prominently? But this is not all. 'The boy stared wild like a gray gos-hawk,' is nearly identical with a line of Hardyknute:

Norse e'en like gray gos-hawk stared wild.

Scott was roused by this parallelism into suspicion of the authenticity of the ballad, and only tranquillised by finding a lady of rank who remembered hearing in her infancy the verses which have here been quoted. He felt compelled, he tells us, 'to believe that the author of Hardyknute copied from the old ballad, if the coincidence be not altogether accidental.' Finally, the young prince's procedure in storming the castle, is precisely that of Gil Morrice in gaining access to that of Lord Barnard:

And when he cam to Barnard's yett,
He would neither chap nor ca',
But set his bent bow to his breast,
And lightly lap the wa'.

It may fairly be said that, in ordinary literature, coincidences like this are never 'accidental.' It may be observed, much of the narration in Fause Foodrage is in a stiff and somewhat hard style, recalling Hardyknute. It was probably one of the earlier compositions of its author.

The Lass o' Lochryan describes the hapless voyage of a maiden mother in search of her love Gregory. In the particulars of sea-faring and the description of the vessel, Sir Patrick Spence is strongly recalled.

She has garred build a bonny ship;
It's a' covered o'er wi' pearl;
And at every needle-tack was in't
There hung a siller bell.

Let the reader revert to the description of the bier prepared for the seeming dead lady in the Gay Gos-hawk.

She had na sailed a league but twa,
Or scantly had she three,
Till she met wi' a rude rover,
Was sailing on the sea.

The reader will remark in Sir Patrick:

They had na sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three, &c.

The rover asks:

'Now, whether are ye the queen hersel,
Or ane o' her Maries three,
Or are ye the Lass o' Lochryan,
Seeking love Gregory?'[20]

[20] The above three verses are in the version printed in Lawrie and Symington's collection, 1791.

The queen's Maries are also introduced in Mary Hamilton, who, indeed, is represented as one of them:

Yestreen the queen she had four Maries;
The night, she has but three;
There was Mary Seton and Mary Beaton,
And Mary Carmichael and me.

On arriving at love Gregory's castle, beside the sea, the lady calls:

'Oh, open the door, love Gregory;
Oh, open and let me in;
For the wind blaws through my yellow hair,
And the rain draps o'er my chin.'

He being in a dead sleep, his mother answers for him, and turns from the door the forlorn applicant, who then exclaims:

'Tak down, tak down the mast o' gowd;
Set up a mast o' tree;
It disna become a forsaken lady
To sail sae royallie.

'Tak down, tak down the sails o' silk;
Set up the sails o' skin;
Ill sets the outside to be gay,
When there's sic grief within.'

Gregory then awakes:

O quickly, quickly raise he up,
And fast ran to the strand,
And there he saw her, fair Annie,
Was sailing frae the land.

* * *

The wind blew loud, the sea grew rough,
And dashed the boat on shore;
Fair Annie floated on the faem,
But the babie raise no more.

* * *

And first he kissed her cherry cheek,
And syne he kissed her chin;
And syne he kissed her rosy lips--
There was nae breath within.

The resemblance of these verses to several of the preceding ballads,[21] and particularly to Sir Patrick Spence, and their superiority in delicacy of feeling and in diction to all ordinary ballad poetry, is very striking. It chances that there is here, as in Sir Patrick, one word peculiarly detective--namely, strand, as meaning the shore. In the Scottish language, strand means a rivulet, or a street-gutter--never the margin of the sea.

[21] A passage in Hardyknute maybe quoted as bearing a marked resemblance to one of the above verses:

Take aff, take aff his costly jupe,
Of gold well was it twined, &c.

There is a considerable number of other ballads which are scarcely less liable to suspicion as modern compositions, and which are all marked more or less by the peculiarities seen in the above group. Several of them are based, like the one just noticed, on irregular love, which they commonly treat with little reproach, and usually with a romantic tenderness. _Willie and May Margaret_[22] describes a young lover crossing the Clyde in a flood to see his mistress, and as denied access by her mother in a feigned voice, after which he is drowned in recrossing the river; the ballad being thus a kind of counterpart of the Lass of Lochryan. In Young Huntin, otherwise called Earl Richard, the hero is killed in his mistress's bower through jealousy, and we have then a verse of wonderful power--such as no rustic and unlettered bard ever wrote, or ever will write:

[22] Called, in Professor Aytoun's collection, The Mother's Malison; and in Mr Buchan's, The Drowned Lovers.

'O slowly, slowly wanes the night,
And slowly daws the day:
There is a dead man in my bower,
I wish he were away.'

One called Fair Annie relates how a mistress won upon her lover, and finally gained him as a husband, by patience, under the trial of seeing a new bride brought home.[23] In the latter, the behaviour of the patient mistress is thus described:

[23] A ballad named Burd Ellen, resembling Fair Annie in the general cast of the story, is a Scottish modification of the ballad of Child Waters, published by Percy, from his folio manuscript, 'with some corrections.' It probably came through the same mill as Gil Morrice, though with less change--a conjecture rendered the more probable, for reasons to be seen afterwards, from its having been obtained by Mr Jamieson from Mrs Brown of Falkland.

O she has served the lang tables
Wi' the white bread and the wine;
And aye she drank the wan water,
To keep her colour fine.

The expression, the wan water, occurs in several of this group of ballads. Thus, in Johnie of Bradislee:

Is there ever a bird in this hale forest
Will do as mickle for me,
As dip its wing in the wan water,
And straik it o'er my ee-bree?

And in the Douglas Tragedy:

O they rade on, and on they rade,
And a' by the light o' the moon,
Until they cam to yon wan water,
And there they lighted down.

See further in Young Huntin:

And they hae ridden along, along,
All the long summer's tide,
Until they came to the wan water,
The deepest place in Clyde.

The circumstance is very suspicious, for we find this phrase in no other ballads.

In Clerk Saunders, the hero is slain in his mistress's bower, by the rage of one of her seven brothers, whose act is described in precisely the same terms as the slaughter of Gil Morrice by the bold baron:

He's ta'en out his trusty brand,
And straikt it on the strae,
And through and through Clerk Saunders' side
He's gart it come and gae.[24]

Sweet William's Ghost, a fine superstitious ballad, first published in Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, 1724, is important as the earliest printed of all the Scottish ballads after the admittedly modern Hardyknute:

There came a ghost to Margaret's door,
With many a grievous groan;
And aye he tirled at the pin,
But answer made she none.

* * *

'O sweet Margaret! O dear Margaret!
I pray thee, speak to me;
Give me my faith and troth, Margaret,
As I gave it to thee.'

'Thy faith and troth thou 's never get,
Nor yet will I thee lend,
Till that thou come within my bower,
And kiss my cheek and chin.'[25]

'If I should come within thy bower,
I am no earthly man;
And should I kiss thy rosy lips,
Thy days will not be lang.

* * *